CPP hits US hypocrisy in cancelling arms sale to PNP
Communist Party of the Philippines
Information Bureau
Press Release
2 November 2016
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today denounced US hypocrisy for invoking principles of human rights in raising “concern” over increasing number of drug suspects killed in the Duterte regime’s “anti-drug war” in its decision to cancel the planned weapons sale to the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Yesterday, the US State Department announced it was stopping the sale of 26,000 M4 assault rifles to the PNP supposedly because of human rights violations committed in the course of the war against drugs. Earlier, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) announced its decision to end a training program it has long been conducting with the PNP.
“The cancellation of the weapons sale to the PNP is a clear rebuke by the US government against the Duterte regime which has increasingly asserted its independence from US dictates and has stood firmly against continuing US military presence in the country,” added the CPP.
The CPP, however, said that “the cancellation of the weapons sale is, in fact, a good thing.”
“It is utterly hypocritical for the US State Department to now invoke human rights against the anti-US Duterte regime when the US government supported without remorse the Marcos dictatorship and all succeeding regimes which trampled on human rights with impunity,” said the CPP.
“The pro-US regimes of Marcos, Cory Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo and Benigno Aquino were all notorious violators of human rights but were never chided by the US government and instead were encouraged with military financing,” added the CPP.
“Over the past several decades, the Filipino people have suffered gravely under the successive US-sponsored counter-insurgency operations conducted by the AFP and PNP under its puppet regimes,” pointed out the CPP. “These counter-insurgency operations were all conducted in favor of US aims of suppressing the democratic and anti-imperialist forces in the Philippines.”
“The US government is despicable for using human rights principles as a convenient tool to justify its acts of intervention and subversion against anti-US regimes around the world, when the US government and US-sponsored and -supported regimes around the world are among the worst violators of human rights,” said the CPP.
The CPP cited the Israel government which, despite gross crimes against humanity in its genocidal war against the Palestinian people, continues to receive more than $3 billion annual military financing from the US.
The CPP said the cancellation of the US of its sale of assault rifles to the PNP “is a great opportunity for the PNP to rethink and repudiate the militarization of police work, something which the US police forces have done and which is now being thrust on the local police forces.”
“It is the US military-industrial complex that turned the US police force into a domestic military force that is being armed with high-powered weapons as well as light-armored vehicles and trained in the same war complex as the US military forces,” said the CPP.
“Over the past few years, the US police forces have become increasingly notorious for being quick on the draw in shooting down suspects, especially black people.”